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Parents of Oxford shooting victims call for state investigation • Michigan Advance

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Parents of Oxford shooting victims call for state investigation • Michigan Advance

In 12 days, it will be three years since the deadly shooting at Oxford High School left four students dead in Michigan. Parents of those killed in the attack met in Oxford on Monday to call on the state to launch an independent investigation into the events leading up to the attacks.

The gunman, who was a student at the school when he opened fire on students and educators at the school on November 30, 2021. sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Due to the death of four students at the end of 2023. The attacker’s parents James and Jennifer Crumbleythey were also held legally responsible for the shooting in a landmark criminal investigation for their role in enabling their 15-year-old son to carry out a mass shooting. The parents were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter earlier this year.

But as other families prepare for Thanksgiving and begin early Christmas shopping, parents of the shooting victims are asking the state to investigate what other agencies, namely the school board, played in preventing the tragedy.

“We’re not going anywhere. We’ll do whatever it takes to encourage change, because it’s not a question of if the school shooting will happen again, it’s a matter of when,” said Steve St. Juliana, father of Hana St. Julianna, the student killed in the Oxford shooting. years old.

It is not enough to hold the attacker and his family criminally responsible. Parents of the victims said much more needed to be done to understand what happened in Oxford and how other families could avoid another school shooting in the future.

Hana St., who was killed in the Oxford High School shooting in 2021. Juliana’s father, Steve St. Juliana speaks in support of a government investigation into the events leading up to the shooting on November 18, 2024 in Oxford, Michigan. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

The attack could have been prevented An investigation completed by Guidepost Solutions in 2023 found that the school did not respond appropriately to the shooter as a potential threat, suggesting that the shooter gave few warning signs. Nearly half of the people investigators wanted to talk to did not speak to investigators. Oxford Public Schools lawyers, as well as the teachers’ union, discouraged school employees from cooperating with the investigation, the report said.

To implement real change, not just gun safety legislation like the one passed by the Michigan Legislature, the state needs to find out exactly what allowed a 15-year-old student to open fire on his classmates and teachers in a school where the community is supposed to be safe. Buck Myre, father of Tate Myre, who was killed in a gun attack when he was 16, said:

“This has always been about change – period – nothing else. It’s time our state government looked into this. Stop hiding; Stop making excuses. The location of the attack was a public school in Michigan. Children’s lives were lost. Children were shot. A teacher was shot. “Every kid in school that day has a shooting badge, a shooting badge that they’ll carry heavy on their chest for the rest of their lives,” Myre said. “Don’t we want to learn from this?”

St. Juliana said school shootings that kill children are common. And if the state does not want more massacres, state institutions need to work together, stop blaming and start working on a clarifying investigation.

“We shouldn’t have to sit here and keep saying, ‘Do a fucking investigation.’ “I’ll quote the Governor of Michigan as saying ‘fix the damn system,'” St. Juliana, referencing Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature call to “fix the damn roads.”

“Forget the roads. Keep our children safe,” St. Juliana.

Buck Myre, father of Tate Myre, who was killed in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting, speaks in support of the state investigation into the events leading up to the shooting on November 18, 2024, in Oxford, Michigan. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel responded to parents’ requests for a state investigation, noting that her office had offered to conduct an investigation several times and had rejected requests from the Oxford School Board, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.

Nessel said his office’s protocol for conducting investigations is to respect local authority, not to use its jurisdiction to supersede criminal investigations at the local or county level. He added that the Attorney General’s Department will only participate in or lead a criminal investigation or prosecution after local authorities refer the case to its office.

Nessel said Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard have their own personal phone numbers, but neither has requested the attorney general’s intervention, though they are still willing to investigate.

“We share the families’ fatigue with the constant finger-pointing and scapegoating in these investigations, and I wish our offer to participate at all levels had been accepted years ago for my office to conduct an investigation,” Nessel said. “At this point, nearly three years after the tragedy, it will certainly be more difficult than if our initial or repeated proposals had been allowed to go through the first time.”

McDonald sent a letter and legal opinion on the matter 9 October In response to her and other families calling for criminal charges to be filed against members of the Oxford District, St. To Juliana. St. In documents provided to the Michigan Advance by Juliana, McDonald says Nessel had the authority to conduct uninvited investigations.

“The attorney general’s office has a wide range of powers, including investigative powers found at common law. In addition to its investigative powers, the Attorney General’s Office is equipped with its own Criminal Investigations Division; which means it has not only the authority but also the resources to investigate potential violations of Michigan law,” McDonald wrote to St. Juliana.

On Monday, parents talked about the Attorney General’s ability to subpoena some people who did not speak to the Guidepost Solutions investigation within Oxford Schools. Nessel cited what he called confusion about what his office is allowed to do. He said the subpoena power can only be triggered in the following situations: probable cause Believing that criminal acts have been committed.

McDonald’s St. In his letter to Juliana, he says that although parents have requested that charges be brought against individuals at Oxford Schools, he “does not see any evidence that would permit me to bring charges against any of these individuals.”

McDonald, St. “…neither my office nor the Guidepost can conduct criminal investigations,” he wrote in his letter to Juliana. “I can only make decisions based on information provided to me by law enforcement, and Guidepost must rely on the cooperation of individuals with knowledge to share that information.”

Steve St Juliana’s new letter to the investigating authority
AG Authority Note

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